Christmas at the Arctic Circle
by SharanMcQuack
Summary: A rewrite of "Christmas  at the North Pole" Disney, 1997


Christmas at the Arctic Circle  
>By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.<p>

A rewrite of "Christmas at the North Pole" Disney, 1997

Christmas was coming and the Trins were blue. Their Uncle Donald was traveling again, visiting the North Pole. Somebody had to sort thur Santa's mail (he gets an awful LOT of mail). When Santa asked for an additional letter carrier to help, three guesses who got sent? A certain hot head they hoped the climate there might cool down a little. The letter carriers never got to meet Santa, they just sorted his mail and sent it on.

'Christmas just won't seem like Christmas without Unca Donald around." the Trins moaned.

Just then, Launchpad landed his copter near the mansion. Then Launchpad came towards the mansion, with a letter in his hand.

"Special delivery! Your Uncle Donald asked me to bring this to you. I met him when I was delivering stuff to his mailroom. " Launchpad said.

"Oh boy!" the trio chorused.

They read the letter out loud: "Dear boys and Uncle Scrooge,

My job here will be over on Christmas day. Please ask Uncle Scrooge to get Launchpad to fly you here. We are having a party."

"Do you think we can get our Unca Scrooge to go? He's awful busy. He may not want to go all the way to the North Pole for a party!" Huey asked.

"He'll go. Once he reads the P. S. I told Donald to add." Launchpad said.

"P.S.: Tell your Uncle Scrooge he can look for gold here." Dewey read.

"There's gold up at the North Pole?" Louie asked.

"Nobody knows. But he can LOOK for it, can't he.? Trust me, IF there's any gold up there, Mr. McDuck will find it." Launchpad replied."I'll go home and wait for his call. I can't fly you there in a copter, I'll need a plane."

So the boys ran and showed the letter to their Uncle Scrooge.

At first, he didn't want to go. Gave all kind of excuses about being too busy, having too much work to do...

"Read the P. S." Huey ordered.

"P.S.: Tell your Uncle Scrooge he can look for gold here." Mr. McDuck read. "Gold? Hmmm. The Klondike isn't THAT far from the North Pole. And there was plenty of gold there, once...it's been picked clean, but there could be lots of gold at the North Pole that nobody's found!"

"Get Mrs. Beakly to pack your things. I'll call Launchpad and arrange for him to fly us there at once!" Mr. McDuck said.

So the boys ran and talked to Mrs. Beakly. However, Webby had been talking with her grandma and she overheard. Webby ran into Mr. McDuck's office and soon wheedled Mr. McDuck into letting her go, too.

"I've never even MET Unca Donald!" she pointed out. (1)

"Oh, alright. If it's OK with your Grandma, you can go." Mr. McDuck said.

LATER...

"But what about Christmas? " Mrs. Beakly asked.

"Can't you come with us?" Webby begged and pleaded until her grandma agreed to come.

Duckworth said HE would stay at the mansion. Nobody minded, once they were sure he WANTED to stay.

"I have no desire to go to the North Pole, to all that ice and snow, thank you very much. I will stay, make sure the mansion is safe in your absence and plan a belated Christmas party for your return." Duckworth said.

Mr. McDuck called Launchpad, Launchpad agreed to fly them there.. Launchpad readied a ski plane and picked them up at the mansion and proceed to fly them to the Arctic Circle.

It was a long, cold trip. For a while, the boys and Webby looked out the windows at the snow and ice below. They saw whales in the ocean and polar bears near the shore. They saw walrus. And seals.

"Is that a penguin?" Webby asked.

"Puffin. No penguins at the NORTH Pole. Puffins look a lot like penguins, only they can fly." Launchpad correctly her, gently.

Once, Launchpad had to swerve out of the way of a flock of geese.

"Sorry about that, Birds usually try to avoid me,too! But those geese have never seen an airplane before or they wouldn't have been too stubborn to get out of my way! A plane so big, it's like they don't see it! It's outside their frame of reference, so they ignore it! I HAD to swerve completely to get out of their way, they weren't budging a inch!" Launchpad explained.

LATER...

They were getting close to their destination when it happened. Out of nowhere, a sled pulled by reindeer was flying right towards them! Launchpad had been flying for hours and hours and was getting tired. His reflexes were off a bit. Launchpad managed to avoid a collision, but the reindeer panicked and damaged his plane. Launchpad made an emergency landing on the ice below.

"But we're supposed to be at Unca Donald's soon!" Huey lamented.

"We will be. As soon as I fix the plane, we'll be on our way again." Launchpad said.

"Hmfh." Mr. McDuck snorted.

Mrs. Beakly gathered them all together and she soon had a fire going. and a picnic supper cooking.

"Don't light a fire on the ice itself! Light it on a piece of metal so you don't melt the ice we're sitting on!" Launchpad warned them.

"Just fix the plane! Bad enough you crashed it!" Mr. McDuck replied.

"Not my fault there are no air traffic controllers this far north or that I wasn't expecting traffic." Launchpad muttered.

Soon, Launchpad had the plane fixed.

"We can get going to your Uncle Donald now!" he said.

"Yay!" they cheered.

But they cheered too soon. They had ignored Launchpad's warning and had lit their fire on the ice itself. The fire melted the ice beneath it. The heat from the fire radiated down, melting the ice on the bottom. Now, the ice started to break up! A crack opened between them and the plane and quickly widened. Launchpad managed to jump to the other side, but the others were not fast nor athletic enough.

"I'll start up the plane and get you!" Launchpad told them.

"You can't land here! The weight of the plane will sink the ice, now!" Mr. McDuck lamented.

"That's NOT what I have in mind!' Launchpad said.

He started up the plane, but did NOT take off. Instead, he taxied about until the plane's wing was spanning from one side of the crack to the other.

"See? The plane's wing makes a perfect bridge." Launchpad said_. (2)_

It did, too. Webby thoughtfully made steps out of snow so her Grandma could get atop the wing easier. They all climbed, one by one, onto the wing and helped each other carefully, slowly cross the wing to the other side of the crack. Then Launchpad helped them down and into the plane. Launchpad taxied away for quite some distance to where the ice was thick and solid. THEN, he took off again.

It wasn't long until they were at the letter carriers party. Everybody partied till the wee hours. At one point, Santa made a surprise visit to the party.

"Hi, everybody! I'm sorry I was too busy to thank you before, but this time of year, I have no time to spare. I can only stay for a few minutes while my reindeer are grabbing a bite to eat, then I have to get back to work. But I wanted to thank you all. You too, Launchpad- we DO run into each other every now and again, don't we?" Santa joked.

Santa grabbed a bite to eat, too.

"I do wish people would leave out real food for me and not just treats. They make it so hard for me to stay on my diet, and then they make fat jokes about me." Santa commented.

'Our Unca Scrooge wants to look for gold here at the North Pole." Webby told Santa.

"Oh dear. I'm sorry, but I own the North Pole. And all the gold here." Santa said.

"There's gold here, then?" Mr. McDuck asked.

"Tons of it. But it's mine, I own it. How do you think I can afford to give toys away year after year? I'm up to my eyeballs in gold up here. I sell a little every year, quietly." Santa explained.

"Perhaps you'd be interested in investing some of that money?' Mr. McDuck suggested.

"Talk to me two weeks from today. I'll have lots of time, then." Santa replied. "I'll need to rest for a little while."

The next morning they went home. That afternoon, after a nap, they had another party, one Duckworth sprung on them. Then they were partied out for awhile.

The End.

(1) Not in the TV show,

(2) Idea swiped from " A Good Swim" in Tio Patinhas 423 and elsewhere.


End file.
